Year Five The Perfect Goodbye Plan novel Chapter 252

Lola looked at Vianne, and whatever maternal affection she had left was now completely gone.

She frowned, her voice full of disdain. “When you were still young enough to call me ‘mother,’ I never taught you to be this greedy.”

When she and Silvia had left the Ashford family with their newfound fortune, they’d done so with smiles on their faces.

“Mom, enough. Let’s just go,” Silvia said, tugging gently at Lola’s hand. She figured it was best to simply ignore Vianne. As long as they didn’t give her any attention, whatever tricks Vianne had up her sleeve would be useless.

Vianne made no move to follow. She just sat there, head lifted, staring at Silvia and her mother, tears streaming silently down her face.

The butler arrived with staff to escort Vianne away, but she kept coming back, stubbornly sitting at the front gates for hours on end.

Even when Silvia and Lola returned home, Vianne was still there, a pitiful figure on the doorstep.

Having learned their lesson from earlier, Lola and Silvia walked right past her, not sparing Vianne even a glance as they entered the house.

Silvia gave a quick word to Kent Parsons, then decided not to return to Chronos Gardens that night. Instead, she stayed with Lola, sleeping in her room for comfort.

The next morning, Silvia had barely reached the bottom of the stairs when she saw the butler rushing in, clearly in a panic.

“It’s bad news,” he blurted, breathless and rattled. “Vianne… she’s collapsed outside.”

Given the frigid weather, even a grown man might have passed out after sitting out there all night.

Silvia had no idea what Vianne expected to accomplish with this stunt, but she still followed the butler out the door.

As soon as she stepped outside, she noticed several cars parked out front—cheap, unremarkable models that looked wildly out of place in a neighborhood like this. And there were so many at once…

She pulled out her phone, dialed emergency services, and held the screen up for the reporters to see. “You have sixty seconds to leave before the police arrive. Your choice.”

The reporters hadn’t expected Silvia to call the police instead of defending herself. They exchanged nervous glances, eyes flickering over Vianne’s unmoving form. Not wanting to risk trouble with the law, they piled into their cars and sped off.

Still, the footage they’d already captured would be more than enough to fuel tomorrow’s rumors.

Silvia turned to Vianne, stepping closer until she was standing right over her. She looked down, eyes cold and mocking. “Vianne, doesn’t this performance exhaust you?”

The woman on the ground didn’t move.

Silvia let out a short, derisive laugh and nudged her gently with the tip of her shoe. “You really think you can drag the Ashford family’s reputation through the dirt?”